NVIDIA Corporation has received a subpoena from the San Francisco Office of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in connection with the DOJ's investigation into potential antitrust violations related to graphics processing units and cards. No specific allegations have been made against NVIDIA. NVIDIA plans to cooperate with the DOJ in its investigation.

you cant say that this wasnt coming, them forcing the 8800's out of the door just to get ahead of ATI, well hopefully it'll come back and hit them in the face but it probably wont make the slightest of difference to profits :shadedshu

This has nothing to do with rushing crap products out the door before they are fully ready to be shipped, though ATI and Nvidia and almost all the Asian mobo companies should be prosecuted for this consumer fraud.

The subpoenas are to investigate POSSIBLE price fixing on video chips/cards between the former ATI and Nvidia. Have you ever wonder WHY video cards sell for $500+ when they cost about $35 to make a top of the line Vid card? Well some folks believe that ATI and Nvidia while staunch competitors... may have manipulated the actual selling prices to maintain highly profitable sales. Since there are only two major players in the high-end PC enthusiast graphics market segment, the Feds wanna be certain no hanky panky is going on like the dishonest deals that the SDRAM makers agreed to so they could fleece consumers.

ATI no longer exist, it's in AMD's court now. And, it's still uncertain as to why both AMD and Nvidia are under investigation for anti-trust.
There are other reasons how anti-trust investigation can come about.

Examples of illegal practices are price-fixing conspiracies, corporate mergers likely to reduce the competitive vigor of particular markets, and predatory acts designed to achieve or maintain monopoly power.

I really hope that they have good reasons for charging that much then, and so little now. If they don't perhaps they both (ATI, Nvidia) are doomed.

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the reason they have is that their always will be eager gimp (no offence meant) willing to pay that much to be first and i have done this a few times myself, when the collective consumer start to say no to ridiculose start prices maybe these graphics cards manufacturers will lower the the prices back to what they were a few years ago at product launch.

you cant say that this wasnt coming, them forcing the 8800's out of the door just to get ahead of ATI, well hopefully it'll come back and hit them in the face but it probably wont make the slightest of difference to profits :shadedshu

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In case you didn't notice, both Ati and nVidia are getting subpoenas for the same reason, Ati is AMD these days after all.

Man, dunno how this will affect the future of both companies, I smell a big lawsuit heading right into Ati and nVidia way in a very near future by one of those patent mongering companies

They better not cut too deep, otherwise AMD and nVidia will spend less money on development of new products. Why would they even bother putting in an honest effort at a high end gfx card, when they don't stand to maintain their profit margins?

They better not cut too deep, otherwise AMD and nVidia will spend less money on development of new products. Why would they even bother putting in an honest effort at a high end gfx card, when they don't stand to maintain their profit margins?